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The Mail Handlers Benefit Plan:

Protecting Members Through Important Patient Safety Initiatives

 

Illegible handwritten prescriptions, preventable hospital errors and dangerous drug interactions threaten your health. The Mail Handlers Benefit Plan (MHBP) is concerned about these and other potential threats to your health and well-being and that of your family.

 

The fact that 98,000 preventable medical errors occur in our thiscountry each year is alarming. This is why we help you protect your health by promoting the identification of identifyingpotential safety concerns. We also work with providers and others in health care to bring about system-wide change.

 

Because medical errors typically occur at the point of care—doctor’s offices, pharmacies or hospitals—these locations are the focus of our safety initiatives.

 

                        Working Together for Your Safety

The Mail Handlers Benefit Plan offers you access to providers in

The FirstHealthÒNetwork.Our stringent quality assurance initiatives include:

·        Strict credentialing standards for providers participating in

The First HealthÒ Network—our board certification rates are significantly higher than national norms, with 88 percent of our primary care doctors and 90 percent of our specialists board-certified. And they stay with us—99 percent of hospitals and 96 percent of doctors choose to stay in the network year after year.

·        Providers must continue to meet our quality standards to continue participationremain in our nnetwork.accreditation by the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (also known as URAC) of our Disease Management and Health Utilization Management programs

·        Oversight of all First Health quality and performance improvement initiatives by First Health’s aCorporate Quality Improvement Committee.

·        Daily interactions by our team of registerednurses^{note 1} and clinical medical directors with members and their physicians.

Call us around the clock at 1-800-410-7778 or e-mail feedback about experiences with your providers. To locate a provider go to www.mhbp.com under “Search for a Doctor, Hospital or FacilityFind a Provider.”

 

Prescription Protection

Risky drug interactions, allergic reactions and over-medicatingFirst Health®Rx manages the MHBP’s prescription drug benefits and helps identify potential errors and serious prescription interactions. Because medication errors make up a large proportion of medical errors, we:

·        Require preauthorizations on some prescriptions and compareing your demographic and prescription profile against the drug prescribed. First Health also, checksing for an unusually large number of prescriptions or prescriptions from multiple physicians and pharmacies.

·        Promote detection of detectinappropriate use of medications, especially narcotics, and limit quanities to help prevent overdose.

·        Alert pharmacists and doctors, as appropriate, to potential risks. At times, we may send educational mailings to you on medication safety.

Find out more at www.mhbp.com under “Patient Safety.”

 

Support—When You Need it Most

If you have an ongoing or complex medical condition, we understand you may need extra help. The First Health® Care Support Program gives you general guidance so you can better manage your condition—now and in the future. Members report high satisfaction with our URAC-accreditedcare support program, available for:

·        Asthma                               ●    Diabetes                       ●    HIV/AIDS

·        Atrial fibrillation                    ●    Heart attack recovery     ●    Pregnancy

·        Congestive heart failure        ●    Hepatitis C                    ●    Transplants

Find out more at  www.mhbp.com under “Members.”

 

Experience Counts

It’s a fact—the more experience hospitals have with medical and surgical procedures, the better your outcome is likely to be. So evaluate your options. Use our new hospital comparison tool at www.mhbp.com to compare and rank hospitals for your procedure or diagnosis on the basis of number of times the hospital has performed a particular procedure, outcome (mortality) rates for that procedurepatients, percentage who develop complications or die, and length of stay and costs. And, the First Health® National Transplant Program refers patients requiring transplants to hospitals that have consistently favorable transplant outcomes.

 

Working as an Advocate for Change

First Health has a leadership role on the Council for Affordable Quality Health Care (CAQH), an alliance of health benefits companies committed to improving the quality of health care by developing important patient safety initiatives:

·        Universal Credentialing DataSource, with up-to-date information on providers and one means to assess quality.

·        Formulary DataSource, an physician resource for finding cost-effective and appropriate medications for their patients and to lay groundwork for an electronic prescription program.

·        Save Antibiotic Strength, a program to preserve the power of antibiotics through appropriate prescribing.

·        Beta blocker education and treatment, promoting long-term use of beta blockers for heart attack survivors.

Find out more at www.mhbp.com under “Patient Safety.”

 

The MHBP Works With You

Because you take an active role in your health care, we’re open 24 hours. Call us at 1-800-410-7778 with health or benefits questions. Explore www.mhbp.com for:

·        Educational resources like Healthwise^®Knowledgebase^{note 2}—information about health topics, medications, medical tests and support groups.

·        Health assessments—see how you score and identify risks, learn prevention strategies and discover simple ways to improve your health.

·        Medical library—symptom checklists, issues to consider when making

treatment decisions and child development guidelines.

The MHBP takes your health and safety seriously. We will continue our efforts to encourage the health care community to reduce preventable medical errors.